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Dragon and Judge: The Fifth Dragonback Adventure (Dragonback (Quality))

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I have been a fan of Timothy Zahn since Heir to the Empire, and it has been a pleasure to watch his work subtly change and mature over the years. The Dragonback series, thus far, has been potentially his most engaging work yet, although The Icarus Hunt has historically been my favorite.

Dragon and Judge might have changed that.

I am amazed at what Zahn has managed to do in this so-called children's series - he has taken very real characters, warts and all, through deep personal struggles that most authors would not dare to plumb in literary fiction, much less sci-fi "youth" fiction. And he has done so in the midst of a fast-paced, action-filled story brimming with gloriously witty writing. Is it a sci-fi? A coming-of-age? A gritty social commentary? A deep psychological drama? A tantalizing mystery? A modern morality play? A suspenseful nail-biter? Or perhaps even an intricate allegory of deeper truths?

Zahn has that wonderful knack of taking other genres and plopping them with great skill and believability into a sci-fi setting. The Icarus Hunt was a classic whodunit; Night Train to Rigel was a deco-era spy thriller; The Green and the Gray was a clever spin on gang warfare. What Zahn has done in the Dragonback series is perhaps even more impressive, more well-rounded and well-crafted.

The story continues seamlessly as the pieces of this intricately woven tapestry begin to come together with amazing skill. The characters are consistent - growing and changing as people do in real life, reacting in believable ways to extraordinary circumstances. May I, for a moment, risk offending fans of the great J.K. Rowling by comparing these two series? I am a dedicated Harry Potter fan, but it is clear that while she is extremely talented and creative, Zahn is the superior storyteller. His characters are more consistent than hers, his suspense better sustained, his surprises more genuine, his story more flawlessly executed.

I have read many books, and I have written many myself, and I have become extremely difficult to impress. But Dragon and Judge impressed me considerably. It is a mature novel from a mature author, who has the courage to write a very moral story in an increasingly immoral world, and to do it with excellence that I know from experience is almost impossibly draining. Especially when the series has not even attained much renown. That is a mark of integrity.

To those who have not yet discovered the Dragonbacks, or Zahn fans who are hesitant to read a "kid" series, I challenge you to immerse yourself in the world of Jack and Draycos, and see if you can emerge from it without being changed. You are unlikely to encounter, in any series or novel or story, two characters you care about more than the noble ex-thief and his K'da poet-warrior. And that is what separates a good story from a great one.

Dragon and Judge is a great one.

I've been reading Timothy Zahn's "Dragonback Adventures" series with a fair amount of enjoyment through the five books so far. It's a YA series. The hero is Jack Morgan, who has acquired a symbiotic companion, Draycos, a dragonlike being of an alien species, the K'Da. The K'Da can turn two-dimensional on the skin of an appropriate host. Indeed, they need to do so at least every six hours or so. Draycos was one of a vanguard group of K'Da as well as their hosts, the Shontine, who were fleeing an evil enemy in another galaxy. They had arranged for a colony in our Galaxy, but were ambushed on arrival. Draycos was the only survivor, and luckily for him Jack turned up -- luckier still, humans are acceptable hosts.

Over several books Jack and Draycos have been trying to track the humans who seem to be helping the bad aliens arrange to destroy the rest of the K'Da. They have by the by acquired an ally of sorts, Alison Kayna, a girl Jack's age (14 or 15) with a similar skillset to Jack's -- thief, hacker, safecracker, etc. And in the previous book they discovered a planet inhabited by a species much like the K'Da, but doomed to mindlessness by the lack of suitably intelligent hosts. Alison is now host to a female named Taneem. (So it would seem -- possibly -- that love interests are in place for both Jack and Draycos, though no real moves in that direction have been taken.)

In this book the quartet head to a planet where Jack's Uncle Virge had stashed something mysterious in a safe-deposit box. No sooner does Jack arrive, however, that he is shanghaied by a group of aliens and taken to their rural home to act as "Jupa", or Judge-Paladin -- to adjudicate tribal disputes, basically. It turns out he smells like their previous Jupas -- who turn out to have been Jack's long-dead parents. Jack cooperates, while he and Draycos sense a mystery concerning an abandoned mine -- and possibly concerning Jack's parents' death.

Meanwhile Alison retrieves the contents of the safe-deposit box, and is immediately kidnapped by bad guys who have been expecting someone to take an interest in that box. Rather implausibly, what they really want is a super-skilled safecracker, to open a safe from Draycos's ship -- that may contain information about the arrival of the rest of the K'Da. In other words, these are the bad guys. Why a 14 year old girl is the best safecracker available to them is a mystery never revealed. It turns out the safe is back on the planet from a couple of books before where Jack freed some slaves -- and Alison finds herself, against her will, guilted into trying to free more slaves.

The book (as with all in the series) has great gulps of implausibility and downright silliness. But it is also fast-moving, fun, with engaging main characters. I find the whole series pretty enjoyable fluff.

Dragon And Judge is the fifth book in Timothy Zahn's Dragonback series, picking up shortly after where Dragon and Herdsman left off. As readers of the first four books will know, Jack, an orphan con-artist/thief (reformed, he insists) and Draykos, a warrior/poet of the dragon-like K'da, are working against a deadline to find out who was behind the attack on the advance fleet of refugee ships that Draykos' people were traveling on, an attack that left Draykos the only survivor. They originally only had two clues -- that the attack was carried out by mercenaries, and that the mercenaries had aliens known as Brummgas in their ranks. Now, after Jack's having first joined up with a mercenary group and then later having himself sold as a slave to a prominent Brummga household that also dabbles in mercenaries, they know all of the key players behind the attack. But they still do not know the exact time and place when the rest of the Shontine/K'da fleet is to arrive, which they must find out in order to prevent it from being ambushed.

Dragon And Judge starts with Jack and Draycos, along with Alison Kayna and her recently acquired K'da companion, Taneem, aboard the Essenay, but things quickly go awry when they decide to make a side-trip to a planet called Semaline in the hope of getting some cash for fuel. In a double case of seemingly mistaken identities, Jack is abducted by a group of Semaline natives known as the Golvins who are convinced that he is the judge they have been waiting for. And Alison is in turn abducted by the Malison Ring who believe her to be working for Jack's Uncle Virgil. The book alternates the action between what's happening with Jack and Draykos back on Semaline and what's happening with Alison and Taneem when they are taken to the Brummga estate where Jack had once been a slave.

"One of the Eytras was standing a little in front of the rest. It was, Alison knew, the position a leader would normally take. 'Good evening,' she said, nodding to all of them and then focusing her attention on the Eytra. 'Do I have the honor of addressing the Penitent?'
--A ripple of surprise ran through the group. The Eytra himself gave no visible reaction. 'I am,' he said. 'Stronlo is my name. Yours is Alison Kayna?'
--'Yes,' Alison confirmed. 'Why the name Penitent?'
--A flicker of pain crossed Stronlo's face. 'I was there when Jack Morgan offered us freedom. I failed to grasp that ofer, and have spent two months repenting my foolishness.'
--He straightened up. 'But now I have been given a second chance,' he said firmly. 'Now that you are here to free us.'
--Alison felt her throat go dry. Shoofteelee, back at the house, had had the same attitude. And the same assumptions. 'That's not exactly the case,' she said carefully. 'I came on a mission of my own.' She had a quick flash of inspiration -- 'At the request of Jack Morgan and the black dragon.'
--'She lies,' one of the Jantries murmured. 'She doesn't know the dragon. She's a spy.'
....
--'Then repeat for us the poem he spoke to the human Noy,' the Jantri said.
--'You must be joking,' Alison protested. 'That dragon has hundreds of poems swimming around his brain. I have no idea which one he hauled out for Noy.'
--'Then perhaps you do not know him after all,' the Jantri growled.
--'The poem begins this way,' the Compfrin beside her offered helpfully.
--'The night was calm, the battle near,
-- The enemy was set with fear,
-- Their eyes had hearkened,
-- The sky had darkened
-- Memories we held so dear.'
--'No,' came a quiet voice from behind them.
--The entire group spun around, their weapons snapping reflexively up into ready positions. And there they froze as a muffled gasp rippled through their ranks.
--Taneem was crouched above them on a large tree limb, her silver eyes shining like tiny moons in the darkness. 'That was incorrect,' she said into the taut silence. '_This_ is the correct poem:
--'The night was calm, the battle near,
-- The enemy was wet with fear.
-- Their ears were hearkened;
-- They had darkened
-- Memories we held so dear.'
--She switched her tail, her eyes shifting to the Jantri. 'I am not the black dragon,' she said. 'But perhaps I will do.'

This fifth book is more on a par with the first two volumes, particularly as it advances the plot considerably with a number of revelations, most significant of which is Jack's finding out who his parents really were and who he really is. However, like the third and fourth volumes, it still annoys me at times in that the plot sometimes requires certain characters to either be dumber than they are or at the very least conveniently forgetful. There's still a lot to be wrapped up in the sixth and final volume, and I look forward to reading it and seeing how it all ends. Recommended.

Dragon and Judge (2007) is the fifth SF novel in the Dragonback series, Following Dragon and Herdsman. In the previous volume, Jack, K'da and Alison herded the Erassvas and Phookas through the forest. They outmaneuvered the Malison Ring mercenaries several times.

Then Frost drove them to the river with a forest fire. Unfortunately for the mercenaries, Uncle Virge was lurking in the river and damaged the transport vessel. Jack and his friends then left the planet in a very conspicuous manner.

In this novel, Jack Morgan was a con artist before he met Draycos. Now he is a young man who hosts a K'da.

Draycos is a K'da, a species that is symbiotic with other beings. Draycos can spread himself over Jack's body like a tattoo. Draycos is also a warrior-poet with the mission of warning his people of the ambush that killed his comrades.

Alison Kayna is a thief and spy. She had escaped with Jack from the Malison Ring mercenary unit on Sunright. Now she has become the host of Taneem.

Taneem is a K'da, but knows little about her species. She had been a symbiont of an Erassva on Rho Scorvi and thus lacked education and training. Now she is Alizon's symbiont.

Uncle Virge is a simulated personality within the computer on Jack's ship. He is a copy of Jack's Uncle Virgil. He has most of Virgil's skills and quirks, but cannot override orders from Jack.

Maximus Frost is a Colonel within the Malison Ring mercenaries. He is a rogue, on the payroll of Arthur Neverlin. They apparently arranged the ambush of the Shontine/K'da advance party.

In this story, Taneem is learning to read. She learns the lessons with some difficulty because of the idiosyncrasies of the language. Draycos supplements her reading with stories of the K'da and their Shontine hosts.

Jack is trying to hack into another Malison Ring computer system, but it locks him out. Alison offers to help, but Jack is mot willing to give her have access to the communicator. He still doesn't trust her.

Jack and his friends need to discover where the Shontine and K'da are planning to meet with their contacts in this space. They assume that their enemies know the rendezvous point. Now they have to pick another Malison Ring station to try again.

Uncle Virge tells them the location of the two nearest stations. Although Montenegro is closest, Jack tells him to go to Vers'tekim. When asked why, Jack says that he wants to go to Semaline, which is on the way to Vers'tekim.

Virgil had often stopped at Semaline. When he went to the bank at the spaceport, Jack was always left behind. Now Jack wants to see what is inside Virgil's lockbox.

Arriving a Semaline, Jack goes to the bank with Draycos spread on his skin. Before he reaches the bank, however, three natives smell his scent and declare him a Jupa. They take him -- despite his protests -- to their home in a desert canyon.

Later, Alison goes to the bank to find Jack, but without success. She does retrieve the items within the lockbox, but two men accost her and take her prisoner. They fly her off the planet to a spaceship, where Colonel Frost confronts her. She is told to break into a safe.

This tale gives Jack some important information about his parents. Alison also gains information about the Shontine/K'da rendezvous. Taneem learns a few lessons about being a K'da warrior.

This story advances Jack and Draycos toward their contact with the Shontine/K'da. The next volume -- Dragon and Liberator -- may complete their mission. Read and enjoy!

Recommended for Zahn fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of high adventure, alien customs, and youthful agents.

-Arthur W. Jordin

Zahn is a wonderful writer who has immersed his characters into a new sci-fi setting. This story is a great whodunit and and is well written. The story keeps your attention and skillfully has the characters grow before your eyes.

I would compare this book to ones as written by J.K. Rowling. Zahn has a way of making even adults love the characters. In the world of Jack and Draycos, you will be thoroughly entertained throughout the experiences of these two key characters.

Jack stops off at the planet of Semaline to pick up some papers that Uncle Virgil had left in a safe deposit box, but before he can get to the bank, he's kidnapped by a group of Golvins who take him back to their remote village in a desert canyon to act as a judge-paladin for them. He discovers that his parents were not miners as his uncle always claimed but judge-paladins who were murdered eleven years ago in that very village. Jack stops trying to escape back to Allison and his spaceship and sets out to solve his parents' murder with the help of Draycos.
Meanwhile, Allison is also kidnapped from Semaline and taken to the Choockook estate and forced to open a K'da safe that contains the location of the rendevous between the refugee fleet and the advanced scouting party. If she fails to open it, Arthur Neverlin and Colonet Frost will have her shot. If she does open it, Neverlin and Frost will be able to carry out their massacre of all the K'da and Shontine refugees.

The Dragonback series is in my opinion a wonderful adventure for young adults of all ages. The Dragon and Judge is the fifth in the series and I am still captivated by the story and the message that it shares with the reader. Jack and Dracos are becoming more than a team. Together they are better than they could have ever been alone. In this book Jack discovers who his parents really were, Judge/Palidins, and they died trying to fight for the rights of a species that wouldn't have a voice otherwise. Jack risks his life trying to do the right thing and Dracos is hurt in the process, which up's the emtional stake. As a contrast Jack's friend Allison from earlier books is on a mission of her own retrieving information about Dracos' people. As she builds a relationship with her dragon, she finds herself making choices she would not normally make. I can't wait to read the next book!

My son is hooked on this series. Each one is well written and holds the attention. Dragon and Judge has a bit more humor than the others because of the aliens.

This entire series is vetted as for "young readers" and while it is not a complex, deep philosophical book it kept my interest through out and I am 54 so this is one I have shared with my thirteen year old and we have been equally satisfied with it.

Me because it was entertaining enough and not in anyway condenscending in tone and to my thirteen year old as the main character is fourteen. LOL.

I recommend the entire series

The fifth installment of Zahn's dragon series is great. I enjoyed reading it and I can't wait for the next one. Zahn tells one "independent" story in each book but also keeps the big story going.